Ken Paxton forced a children’s hospital to open a “detransition clinic.” Here’s what it will offer.
Texan Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who is currently running for U.S. Senate, is touting the latest details of his “detransition clinic.” First agreed to back in May, he says that the settlement that arose from his investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital’s gender-affirming care has now been “fully executed” and he has provided details of how it has to operate. “This historic settlement is a resounding defeat for the radical gender ideology that has preyed on Texas children under the guise of ‘care,’” Paxton said in his victory lap after extracting at least $10 million from a pediatric hospital. “Texas Children’s has agreed to pay millions back to Texas. The detransition clinic, which is the first of its kind, must open within months.” Related 2nd major hospital opens detransition clinic under pressure from Department of Justice He continued, attacking the doctors that provide life-saving care for trans youth: “Activist doctors who harmed children have been fired. This settlement sends an unmistakable message: if you put radical ideology over children’s health, my office will go after you. We will continue to lead the way in stopping the far-left’s radical gender agenda.” Back in 2023, Paxton and the Texas Office of the Attorney General initiated an investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH). Paxton claimed that the hospital had fraudulently used incorrect billing codes when providing gender-affirming care and listed the wrong gender markers for trans patients in an attempt to avoid being detected when providing gender-affirming care to minors, which the state banned in September 2023. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today After years of investigation, during which the hospital supplied over 5 million documents to Paxton and his office for the investigation, the hospital decided to settle, while maintaining their innocence. “Today, we made the difficult decision to settle with the Texas Attorney General and the Department of Justice, closing a chapter that has been wrought with falsehoods and distractions,” the hospital said at the time. “To be clear — we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation.” That original settlement required that the hospital pay back $10 million in funds from Texas Medicaid which had been used for “illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions.” Paxton’s new announcement reveals that over $8.5 million of that money will go back to the state directly. It also required that TCH “fire, permanently and irrevocably terminate all existing privileges, and never again hire or credential five woke doctors who performed harmful medical interventions on Texans.” According to Paxton’s announcement, those doctors have now been fired, but their identities have not been released. TCH also had to agree not to provide gender-affirming care in the future and to update their bylaws so that a physician providing gender-affirming care to a minor would automatically lose all of their privileges without exception. Finally, the settlement said that they had to establish a “detransition clinic” that would “help patients reverse the damage caused by ideologically-motivated physicians who harmed patients by performing dangerous medical interventions for the purpose of ‘transitioning’ them.” According to Paxton’s new announcement, the clinic must be operational before the end of October. If met, that date would mean that the clinic would open days before the November 3 U.S. Senate election, where Paxton is currently trailing Democratic State Rep. James Talarico in the polls. According to the new settlement documents, the clinic must provide “detransition-related medical care” to any patient up to the age of 21 who have received “sex-rejecting procedures” (a derogatory and inaccurate term for gender-affirming care that has been popularized by the White House). That care specifically has to include obstetrics and gynecological care, implying a particular focus on trans people who were assigned female at birth. (While much anti-trans propaganda focuses on the imagined dangers of trans women, anti-trans Republicans are also often keen to bring up the so-called “genital mutilation” of young girls, presumably referencing bottom surgery, which is never provided to minors.) Other services from the clinic will include “multidisciplinary services, but not limited to, endocrinology, surgery, primary care, fertility counseling, psychiatry, psychotherapy, social work/case management [to include navigation of insurance, legal name changes, patient navigator role to coordinate across departments], and speech pathology.” TCH is also required to publicize the clinic, creating an “easily accessible landing page” on their website that describes the clinics services. For funding, they must include “detransition clinic” as a category for earmarked donations on the TCH’s donations webpage, and any donations will be used to fund the clinic in the long term. All of these services must be offered for free, for at least the first five years of the clinic’s existence. Studies have repeatedly shown that detransition is incredibly rare. In 2022, the American Academy of Pediatrics released research showing that only 2.5% of minors who identified as trans ended up identifying as cis five years later. JAMA Pediatrics published a 2024 study showing that just 1% of trans youth who transition choose to detransition later on. In 2025, Advocates For Trans Equality published a survey of 84,000 trans adults with 98% saying they were more satisfied with their lives after they transitioned. A report from Fenway Health suggested that 13% detransition, but also noted that 83% of those who detransitioned did so because of discrimination, stigma, family pressure, and increased vulnerability, not because they felt they weren’t trans. Fenway also noted that many of those who detransitioned later went on to retransition in later life. The Texas case set a precedent, and in June the Cleveland Clinic of Ohio reached a similar settlement. That settlement not only required that the hospital provide no-cost “detransition healthcare services,” it also required them to not provide gender-affirming care for minor for next 20 years, despite the fact that it is already illegal in the state. Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
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